


Fortune's Wheel

by Medeafic



Series: Circus [2]
Category: Glee RPF, Star Trek RPF
Genre: Accidents, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Circus, Circus, F/F, Homophobic Language, M/M, Phobias, Psychological Trauma, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-02
Updated: 2012-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-30 12:09:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medeafic/pseuds/Medeafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dianna is tired of everyone treating her like she's breakable, especially Chris.  The Daisies show what they can do, and Lea makes a proposition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fortune's Wheel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Faberryspork (jaymamazing)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaymamazing/gifts), [pippin004](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pippin004/gifts).



> _________________________________________________________________  
> Warnings: Horses used in a circus context. Mentions of past physical trauma from an accident, childhood trauma, and allusions to depression. Mention of childhood bullying and a homophobic slur.  
> _________________________________________________________________

Dianna sleeps poorly that night, and wakes as the dark is changing into morning gloom. Her spine feels like an immovable steel rod in her back as she flexes her legs and neck to loosen up, glaring at the trailer ceiling. She feels annoyed before she remembers why, and then it comes back to her.  
  
Chris.  
  
She knows he feels badly about everything, but she’s sick of fighting with him and she’s sick of the way he hovers over her. She’s sick of everyone treating her like she’s breakable.  It’s driving her crazy, and it’s been building up ever since she got back to Greenwood's. Even Bruce, refusing for so long to bring in replacements for her and Chris. Absurd.  
  
She bites her lip as her eyes burn.  _No more tears, Bona Dea_ , she reminds herself, using Bruce’s old nickname for her without thinking. She swore never to cry again about the accident after her haze of despondency passed over. She never wants to feel that way again, because it was short steps from  _poor me_  to crying to  _I wish I were dead_.  
  
It takes a long time to get out of bed without Chris’s help.  She has to start doing it on her own sometime, though, and today is as good as any to start. A clumsy, painful roll gets her to the edge of the bed. It’s easier once she’s sitting up, her back clicking into some semblance of working order. Sometimes she imagines her vertebrae stacking and settling like Bruce’s Uno chips.  
  
She showers and brushes back her damp hair in the steamed mirror, careful not to make any jerky movements that will set off the pain in her back. Everything takes more time today without Chris to help, and in dressing she has to give up on a pull-over top in the end, settle for a button-up blouse and a skirt she can step into.  
  
She eyes her meds in their Monday slot of the ghastly fuchsia pill organizer (Chris’s choice, and she knows  _pink for girls_  was in his mind when he bought it no matter how much he denies it) and is tempted to leave them. In the end, she chokes them down, trying to distract herself by thinking about other things.  About Daisies, about yesterday. About her admittedly insensitive joke that made Chris storm off.  
  
She sits at her tiny kitchenette table, feeling teary again. It wasn’t fair of her to joke about it –  _Drop me again?_  – and besides, it’s not true. Chris didn’t drop her. She fell. She is adamant about that, always has been.  
  
Yesterday afternoon, after Chris’s exit, Zoë had asked her if she wanted to go back to her trailer, but Di refused. “I’m not going to let him spoil my fun,” she said stubbornly, and Zoë had brought her out a glass of lemonade clinking with ice.  
  
Twenty minutes later Di’s back had begun to ache in the low-slung chair, and she was about to call it quits when Lea and Zach rounded the side of the Big Top and Bruce gave them a wave.  
  
“Daisy alert,” Zoë hissed, and they both sat up straighter, Di ignoring the pain.  
  
Zach actually kissed their hands, and said, “Charmed,” when Bruce introduced them. Dianna shaded her eyes against the sun to look up at Lea.  
  
“Hi. I’m Dianna. I’d get up, but—”  
  
Lea bent down to give her a careful but enthusiastic hug around the shoulders. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to meet you. You’ve been my hero for  _years_.”  
  
“Oh,” Dianna said into her glossy hair. “Wow. Thanks.”  
  
Lea pulled back again, beaming. “It’s one of the reasons we came here.”  
  
Zach smiled affectionately at Lea. “Maybe now I’ll get some peace and quiet. I’ve been hearing about the Amazing Dianna Agron for just about my entire life.”  
  
“Why do you and your brother have different last names now?” Lea asked abruptly. “I’ve always wondered. You changed it a few years back, even before he dropped—”  
  
“Why don’t we have a look inside the Top?” Bruce suggested. “It’s secure now.” He shepherded Lea and Zach away, but Lea looked back several times over her shoulder at Di. Just before they disappeared into the main tent, Lea gave a little wave.  
  
“ _Someone_  has a fan,” Zoë drawled.  
  
“That was strange. It’s not like I’ve done anything recently.”  
  
Zoë looked at her in amazement.  
  
“Okay,” Dianna amended. “Apart from break my back. But that wasn’t intended as performance art.”  
  
Broken her back – it wasn’t the exact medical term. Spinal shock and compression fractures to the vertebrae didn’t have the same ring, though.  
  
“How old do you think Lea is?” she asked Zoë.  
  
“A little younger than you. John Googled them as soon as he heard Bruce was taking them on. She turns twenty-one in…August, I think? Maybe September. And he’s twenty-four, or just about.”  
  
The heat had begun to get to her, and boredom. “Time for me to get back to my sickbed, I guess,” she’d said. Zoë helped her stand, stepping close with an arm around Di’s waist.  
  
“I’m fine,” Di told her, but Zoë had given her a light bump with her hip.  
  
“Come back to my place,” she suggested. “We can play with my shoes. You can lie on  _my_  bed just as well as you can on yours.”  
  
So they looked at Zoë’s shoe collection, and tried them on and talked about the Daisies, and by the time they’d hit the secret stash of thigh-high latex boots it was dinnertime.  
  
At dinner Dianna had watched, amused, as Lea played the diva card. She’d decided on a whim to try to smooth things over, because tempers always flared in the hot weather, and it would be a shame if Lea made a bad first impression on the troupe.  
  
Lea opened up a little once her guaranteed-vegan meal came out, slapped down in front of her by a hostile Karl.  
  
“It’s good,” she confided to Dianna, who nodded.  
  
“Karl’s a fantastic cook.”  
  
“I read that you were a vegetarian.” Lea pointed with her fork at Di’s tofu cutlets.  
  
“You read it? Where?”  
  
Lea started listing numerous papers, both major and minor. She seemed to have read every interview Di had ever given. The local media usually came around for an interest story when the circus rolled in, and Di and Chris were the ones who ended up as the face of the circus. Dianna had enjoyed it, although Chris was nervous and uncomfortable every time, letting Di take the lead in interviews. This season, Di assumed, Lea and Zach would play the media game instead.  
  
After dinner, when Zoë and John and Anton had to clear, she had walked with Lea around the camp outside, and accepted an invitation to see Lea’s new trailer.  
  
“It’s much nicer than our old one. The last circus we were in was bigger, a lot more of us, but that also meant there was less money to go around and we were all contractors. Zach and I shared a trailer. I don’t think he liked living with me very much; we argued a lot. When Bruce offered us both new trailers as well as headlining here, we knew we had to take it. You never know, he might take us on as permanents. I just wish he’d asked us in time for the very start of the season, back in March.”  
  
She sounded uncertain, faintly hurt. Dianna opened her mouth to tell her that Bruce started out looking for trapeze artists, and so he struggled with the decision for a while, but Lea hadn’t stopped for breath. “And of course, there was the chance to meet you. I would have done anything for  _that_.”  
  
Dianna eased herself into a chair as Lea chattered on and let the conversation roll over her. She nodded and smiled when required, too busy being surprised at someone treating her like a normal person instead of a priceless glass antique to really listen, until Lea started talking about the accident.  
  
“And I was  _devastated_  when I heard what happened to you. I started a campaign at our place for better safety awareness, and I managed to get some new procedures and training in place.”  
  
Oh, God. Not what she needed, not right then. Di stood up, her back seizing, but she smothered a painful noise. “I should go, I’m sorry. I still need to rest a lot these days, and I think I might have overdone it today.”  
  
Lea insisted on helping Di back to her own trailer, and had given her an impulsive kiss on the cheek goodbye. “You’re even prettier in person,” she’d said, her eyes luminous in the soft yellow trailer light, and then she’d turned and skipped off, turned a few cartwheels from what Dianna could see in the darkness.  
  
She thought again about Zoë’s words.  _Someone’s got a fan_. It was a little strange was the way Lea seemed to know so much about her.  _Creepy or cute?_ Dianna wondered to herself while looking blankly at her newest book. She never read them anyway. They were just an excuse for having time to think, or to not think if she preferred. She could stare at the words until they turned into spindly ink markings, squiggling on the page, and clear her mind of everything, or contemplate the meaning of the universe. Or the meaning of Daisies.  
  
Cute. Cute for now; if Lea dyed her hair blonde and started stealing her clothes, that would be creepy. But for now, Di came down on the cute side. There was something adorable about her large eyes and full red lips, the way she’d looked at Dianna when she helped her up the trailer steps.  
  
And then Chris had interrupted her thought pattern, and she’d snapped at him, and he wasn’t here this morning to help her.  
  
She feels forlorn again.  
  
“You can’t have it both ways,” she tells herself. “Either you want his help or you want to help yourself.”  
  
  
***  
  
  
She walks alone to breakfast for the first time since her return to Greenwood’s, turning down offers of hands or shoulders to lean on. Lea and Zach are already near the front of the line and Zach motions her over. “Cut in,” he offers. “So Lea shuts up about you. Please.” He smiles, and Di laughs, watches Lea duck her head with an embarrassed frown.  
  
“Are the breakfasts as good as the dinners?” Zach asks. Di wonders if he’s giving Lea a chance to recover her composure.  
  
“Even better. We all eat huge amounts and then go work it off all day. Well, not me, not anymore.”  
  
Lea snaps her head up. “You’ll get better, though, right?” she asks. “You’ll be back on the trapeze one day?”  
  
The line falls silent, the morning murmurs stilling behind Di, and she can sense ears straining to listen to her reply.  
  
“No,” she says at last. “Even once I’ve fully healed, I won’t have the same range of motion needed for flying. So, no. I’m grounded from now on.” She doesn’t even feel upset as she replies, she notes with satisfaction. It took a long time to come to terms with that limitation.  
  
“You must really hate your brother,” Lea says, so casually that she might have said she hates how long it takes the hot water to kick in.  
  
“ _Lea._ ” Zach is aghast.  
  
Lea looks obstinate. “I’m sorry. I just figured – if  _you_  ever hurt me like that, I’d never—”  
  
“Be  _quiet_ ,” Zach snaps, and as Lea turns around with a huff, folding her arms, he says to Di in a low voice, “I’m sorry, really. I have to apologize for her behavior. She’s just—”  
  
“Of course,” Di says, with an automatic smile. Everyone else in line has found a reason to study the ground or sky, except John, who is goggling at them with no shame.  
  
She lets her gaze slide away to where Chris is heading out of the mess tent, looking for her. He waves her over, and normally this special treatment – being called in first – drives her crazy and she always refuses it unless it’s a really bad day, but this time it’s a relief to step out of line. She gives a polite nod to Zach and says nothing to Lea, drifts past with her head held high to join Chris.  
  
“What’s gotten into you, princess?” he asks as they sit.  
  
“Nothing. Can you get me an extra egg this morning?” She doesn’t want one, but she has to change the subject somehow, and Chris is always telling her she’s not eating enough.  
  
Chris rises to fetch her food. “By the way,” he adds, before leaving, “I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to upset you.”  
  
“I’m sorry too. Why do you think I’m letting you wait on me this morning?” She grins, and he smiles back, surprised and relieved.  
  
“Because it’s  _such_  a pleasure,” he says, and goes to the buffet.  
  
Zach and Lea are among the first into the tent, and Lea look mutinous, as though she’s going to make trouble again about the food. But Karl has set up a new section, headed “For Picky Eaters”, with a selection of vegan-friendly breakfast foods.  
  
“Are those…tempeh strips?” Lea asks, her eyebrows raised.  
  
Karl leans against the table and looks down at them. “Yep. Smokey tempeh strips.”  
  
Lea looks over everything set out. “You made all this just for me?”  
  
“Not just you. But, well. Mostly you.”  
  
She gives him a smile so wide and beautiful that Karl looks a little love-struck. “Thank you!”  
  
Karl mutters something about her being welcome, and Dianna looks at Chris, who has just returned with their plates.  
  
“So she does have  _some_  manners,” he says.  
  
“Oh, like you’re such a paragon,” Di says, and bites into a piece of toast. She’s not sure why she feels like sticking up for Lea, especially after what she said about Chris, but there it is. Dianna has a suspicion that there’s more to Lea Michele than tantrums and tactless statements.  
  
She sees Zach looking for a place to sit and notes the way his eyes brighten when they land on Chris and the empty place next to him. But looking at Dianna, Zach grabs Lea by the elbow and steers her towards John’s table instead. Chris gazes after him with the same sort of expression he reserves for Karl’s hash browns, and Dianna tries not to smile.  
  
They eat until they’ve cleared their plates, Chris looking wistfully down at his. “I never thought I’d miss stuffing myself quite as much as I do.”  
  
“And again, this is why you should get back up there.”  
  
Chris leans his face in one hand, elbow on the table, creating the illusion of privacy. He makes sure their tablemates are engrossed in food or gossip before he speaks. “Bruce asked me if I’d consider training Zach and Lea for fly trap.”  
  
“Is that good or bad?”  
  
He shrugs. “At least I’d feel like less of a mooch if I did.”  
  
They don’t get a chance to finish the conversation because Anton comes over to ask how Di is feeling this morning. She grits her teeth into something resembling a smile and says what she always says, which is, “Fine.”  
  
After breakfast she’s not-reading in her trailer when there’s a knock at the door, slow and deliberate. “Come in,” she calls, and is surprised to see Zach looking sheepishly at her from the doorway.  
  
“I don’t want to intrude, but I wondered if I could have a chat with you.”  
  
Dianna would rather be alone right now – she’s already sent Chris away – but it’s not like she’ll lack for introspection time later in the day. She pats the bed next to her absent-mindedly and then pauses. “Uh – or there’s a chair over there, if you’d prefer.”  
  
“Maybe the chair for today,” Zach says, and sits. “So.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“I’m sorry about Lea.”  
  
“I know. You said.”  
  
“I just wanted to explain it a little better to you, not that it’s an excuse, but maybe you might give her another chance if you understand where she’s coming from.”  
  
Dianna closes her book. “You’re assuming I wasn’t going to in the first place.”  
  
Zach looks taken aback. “Well. She was pushing it.”  
  
“She was.”  
  
Zach stretches out his long legs and Di takes an appreciative look at them. Chris does have good taste. “Lea’s been a huge fan of yours for years. I mean,  _huge_. You’re her hero.”  
  
“ _Me_?”  
  
“She’s always wanted to be an entertainer, and she got obsessed with circus performance. She used to jump through hula hoops in my backyard for hours. Said she had years to make up for.”  
  
Di nods. It’s unusual, although not unheard of, for performers to come in from the outside. Many of them are born into it and spend their lives moving between circuses, an intricate and incestuous little circle. “Chris and I are fourth generation. Anton is  _ninth_ , would you believe it? So – you knew Lea back then?”  
  
“We moved to Lea’s neighborhood in New York when I was twelve. Lea didn’t have many friends, and neither did I – such a drama queer I left a rainbow glitter trail behind me. I don’t think my bowl cut helped, either.” Dianna laughs with him, but she’s still hurt on his behalf.  
  
“Kids can be such assholes,” she says.  
  
“Yeah. But I always had Lea. She belted this guy one time on the street for calling me a fag. Pow! Right in the nuts. I could take care of myself, Lea’s just more  _direct_. There’s a lot of loyalty in her, a lot of love. She doesn’t always express it in the best way, maybe.” He smiles fondly. “Anyway. We were always trying to outdo each other in our performances, spent most afternoons practicing. We were a pretty good team. I came up with the stories behind the acts and Lea concentrated on technical perfection.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “She wants to be the best at whatever she does.”  
  
“Bruce wouldn’t have taken her if she  _wasn’t_  the best. She does impalement arts, right?” Knife-throwing is a skill that has fallen out of vogue in modern circus. Dianna has only known a few impalement artists to pass through Greenwood’s, usually someone’s short-term boyfriend or a couple looking for a free ride to the nearest big city. While she understands the aspect of danger and the quick thrill, Dianna has never been  _that_ impressed by the performances.  
  
On the other hand, Lea’s intense personality might lift the art to another level. “I’d like to come and watch your practice sometime. I’m sure Lea’s amazing at what she does.”  
  
“Yeah.” Zach sits up, pensive. “It’s not what she does, but what she  _wants_  to do that’s the problem. She wants to do trapeze. But she can’t. So she does everything else that she can think of to make up for the fact that she can’t fly.”  
  
“She’ll be able to do it soon enough,” Di says, puzzled. “Chris said Bruce wanted him to train you both, and I think he’ll do it.”  
  
“ _What?_  Oh, man.”  
  
“You don’t like fly trap?”  
  
“No – just – when I said Lea can’t do trapeze, I mean she literally  _can’t_.”  
  
“But why not?” Di is feeling more and more bewildered as the conversation continues, while Zach looks more agitated.  
  
“I can’t tell you.”  
  
Dianna rolls her eyes. Apparently Lea isn’t the only one with a yen for dramatics.  
  
Zach stands up. “I’d better go. I probably shouldn’t have said anything in the first place but—” He stops in the open doorway and looks back, seems to make up his mind about something. “It’s not something she likes people to know, but maybe if you ask her about it she’ll open up.”  
  
  
***  
  
“How  _mysterious_ ,” John says after breakfast the next day. Di has caught up with him for a gossip near the practice area and given him a discreetly edited version of Zach’s visit. They sit on a log under a tree at the edge of the forest, watching the ring crew continue trailing in the audience benches to the Big Top, and set up the open-air practice ring behind the tent. Eric has banned John from helping today after the spat they had at load-in.  
  
When she’s not in bed or being fussed over by Chris, a lot of Dianna's time these days is spent in idle gossip with John, because there’s nothing else for her to do and John is the only one who still laughs when Di is snarky.  
  
“Why’d the Green Man contract them if they can’t fly?” John muses. “He’s business-savvy. Doesn’t make much sense.”  
  
Di doesn’t know. “Maybe he assumed. Maybe they lied.”  
  
“You think?” John is excited by the idea. “Maybe they’re not even who they  _say_  they are. Maybe they’re on the lam!”  
  
“Maybe they’re assassins Bruce hired to take out the competition,” says a voice behind them.  
  
Di blushes, but John brazens it out.  “It would certainly explain why Bruce contracted a couple of dinky impalement artists.”  
  
Zach sits down on the ground in front of them, folding up like a concertina and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He’s wearing a tight striped top, skinny jeans and a beat-up straw fedora. “Lea’s not so dinky. You’ll see for yourself soon enough. Bruce asked us to put on an exhibition for the company later this morning.”  
  
He seems morose, and Dianna hopes that overhearing their gossip hasn’t upset him. “We shouldn’t have been talking about you like that,” she offers, but Zach just shrugs.  
  
“It’s no big deal. I know people hear ‘knife-throwing’ and think it’s quaint, closer to vaudeville than circus. But there’s nothing wrong with vaudeville, unless you’re a snob.”  
  
“But the circus has evolved into  _art_ ,” John says. “You’ll notice we don’t have a lion-tamer or an organ-grinder either. And if you don’t like it, why do you do it?”  
  
“I never said I didn’t like it. It doesn’t matter much to me what we do, as long as we’re performing. That’s the rush.” He unfurls his legs, sprawling out on the grass and leaning up on his elbows. “That’s why we all do it, right? We run into that enormous ring to give up everything we have, and pray it doesn’t just swallow us whole instead.”  
  
“Sure, we all love the audience reaction,” John says, and he sounds uncomfortable.  
  
“That’s not quite what I meant.” Zach doesn’t expand.  
  
Dianna thinks back to how it felt, every time, that moment just before she jumped and flew. “Zach’s right. It’s a spiritual thing. We give everything we have just for the chance to be worshipped for a few minutes a day. To be seen as superhuman.” She won’t have that back, ever. She has to look away for a moment.  
  
There’s a shout from one of the ring crew, waving John over, and John sits up straight, hopeful and alert. The crew member exchanges a few words with Eric, who shakes his head, but then looks over to John and shrugs. “All is forgiven!” John crows. “You guys are getting too philosophical for me, anyway. I’ll catch you later.” He jogs over to the crew.  
  
“You should feel free to tell John to shut his mouth,” Dianna suggests. “He just likes to—”  
  
“Try out the new kids in school, yeah. I know. He doesn’t bother me.”  
  
“You  _look_  bothered.”  
  
Zach lies down on the ground, spreading out his limbs. “Really not. Not at all. All apple-pie-okay.”  
  
“Come on, don’t sulk,” Dianna says, as easily as she would say it to Chris.  
  
Zach snorts, smiles. He rolls onto his side and props his face up with one hand. “Just feel like there’s more I could do. Don’t say anything to Lea, though. I don’t want to make her feel bad.”  
  
They stay where they are, Dianna shifting every so often to find a more comfortable position. Shouts and noise from the ring crew float over to them.  
  
“So if you  _could_  do anything,” Di says. “I mean, in the circus. What would you do?”  
  
“Fly,” Zach says immediately. “I can’t, because Lea can’t, but it’s always looked so cool. So free.”  
  
Dianna bites back the obvious response because there’s not much point arguing about it with him. Instead she says, “You and Chris would make a good team.”  
  
Zach swivels and sits up. “You think?”  
  
“Sure.” She has no idea, but at least it might get Chris interested in fly trap again. Using Zach as human bait might not be ethical, but she’s willing to bet it’ll be effective.  
  
Zach looks pleased, and Di feels a little better about him overhearing the gossip earlier. He stands up. “I better get changed for the show,” he says. “Lea gets all pissy if I don’t put on my practice gear.”  
  
“Not sure if you could  _get_  a costume tighter than those jeans,” Dianna says, and Zach laughs.  
  
“Oh, my costume is more…let’s just say bouffant, and don’t breathe a word of that to John. He already thinks we’re some sideshow act, I don’t think he’ll respect us any more in Hammer pants. Can I walk you back to your trailer?”  
  
Giggling, Di shakes her head. Zoë will be meeting up with her soon enough, with the ever-present folding chair. There’s no way Dianna is missing Lea and Zach’s premiere performance, even if it  _is_  just an exhibition for the troupe.  
  
Zach makes it halfway across the clearing before she can’t help herself. “Stop!” she calls after him, and he turns in surprise. She cups her hands around her mouth to make sure he hears. “Hammertime!”  
  
She can see his delighted grin even at a distance, and he even does a passable M.C. Hammer dance as he moves out of sight behind the nearest trailer.  
  
  
***  
  
  
The entire troupe turns out to see the new act, even the group that Chris snidely calls the Insane Clown Posse. They’re headed up by John, who stands in a lazy slouch against the side of a trailer.  _I’m unimpressed_ , his stance says, but he gives Di a wink when she passes by with Zoë. Dianna always gets a front-row pass to things like this, and for once she’s glad of it. Zoë sets out two chairs and they each sink into one.  
  
The practice ring has been set up now and Dianna can see Lea’s throwing knives on a table. Shaped in elongated diamonds, they nestle into a soft burgundy cloth in a slanted velvet case. They’re much larger than Di expected, the size of her own forearm. The whole knife, blade to handle, is cast from inky carbon steel and each blade is imprinted with something in a duller shade of black. Di has to stare for a few moments to make it out – a thorny rose. In another part of the practice ring stands a round backboard painted with two thick white lines, with medieval-looking straps for the human body.  
  
Simon Pegg, their ringmaster, bursts into the practice area in traditional tails and a top hat, although the performance is being held outdoors under the bright sunshine. Di is pleased, though. Greenwood’s haven’t been as welcoming to Lea and Zach so far as they might, so Simon taking extra effort now can only make a good impression on the Daisies.  
  
Simon starts with some patter to warm up the crowd and even though they all know exactly what he’s doing, Dianna can hear some genuine chuckles and murmurs of appreciation from the troupe. The atmosphere changes, becomes less challenging, more interested and excited.  
  
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls; the wicked impalement artistry of  _mademoiselle_  Lea Michele and  _monsieur_  Zachary Quinto.” Simon whips off his hat and extends his arm in welcome as Lea and Zach troop around the side of the Big Top.  
  
They’re wearing white cotton practice outfits, billowy and yes, rather too close to harem pants for John not to notice.  Di hears him snort with laughter. But his fellow clowns stay quiet, and as Lea and Zach get closer, Di understands why. They  _should_  look silly, but they don’t. They’ve smudged kohl around their eyes, making them look huge and black.  
  
They look dangerous.  
  
Lea has a strip of frayed material wrapped around her head, the long ends fluttering in the wind, and suddenly Dianna can see her on the deck of a black ship with skull and cross-bone flags.  
  
As quickly as the image comes, it’s chased away when the two of them arrive in the practice area and give bright, performance-ready smiles at the audience. Lea in particular is transformed, and now Dianna starts to understand why Bruce contracted her. Charisma radiates from her, transfixing the attention of the audience and drawing every eye to her slight figure.  
  
She’s sure Zach is just as magnetic, but Dianna can’t quite tear her gaze away from Lea to make certain.  
  
They both perform some standard tumbling on the gymnastic mats before Zach shows off his static trapeze routine on a low-set stationary swing. Chris is crouching next to Di’s chair by this point, having crept closer and closer through the crowd, and she sees his eyes narrow as Zach performs a balanced and poised routine, leisurely and beautiful and seemingly effortless, like a slow-moving river finding its way between rocks. Chris glances up at Di, mouths,  _He’s good_. She nods back.  
  
Even John has settled down on the heckling noises, or at least, Di can’t hear his  _tsks_  and  _whatevers_  any more. Once Zach flips backwards off the trapeze, landing with perfect carriage, there’s a smattering of applause. He saunters back to the table and picks up a sword. Chris stands up.  
  
“He’s not really going to…is he?” he mutters.  
  
Zach makes an elaborate bow towards the audience and then draws himself straight and tall. He tips his head back, and slides the sword into his mouth and down his throat. The troupe is so quiet that the birdcalls in nearby trees seem like intrusions. They haven’t had a sword-swallower  _ever_  at Greenwood’s, not that Di can remember, and although she knows swords for swallowing are dulled, it still feels like moving a muscle, cracking a twig, might break Zach’s concentration and cause him to slit himself open, inside-out.  
  
The Greenwood’s audience is going to  _love_  this, Di realizes.  
  
Lea is the only one who seems unmoved. After Zach pulls the sword out slowly, she even rolls her eyes a little when he makes a flourishing gesture to encourage applause, but she claps too.  
  
Dianna is sure she’s not the only one who catches the look Zach sends to Chris. Chris is clapping harder than anyone else, right next to her ear. She turns away to say to Zoë, “I don’t think my brother stands much of a chance.”  
  
“I wonder if Zach gives lessons. I could do with a reduction in my gag reflex,” Zoë replies. The applause dies down before they can get into really X-rated territory.  
  
Zach positions himself on the sturdy backboard wheel, and lets Lea strap him in at the waist, leaving his ankles and wrists free. Lea, turning on the charm again, informs the audience that those straps are just for theatrical effect. “You don’t need them, really, only the waist. As long as Zach holds on tight to the hand grips.” Dianna can sense people in the crowd craning their necks to see. Lea paces back across the ground, staking out an unknown distance. She reaches some invisible point and makes a mark in the dirt with a knife, a long line.  
  
Zach makes a show of wriggling against the restraint and settling himself between two thick white lines while Lea collects the rest of her knives. She steps back to the mark in the dirt. “This is the easy part,” she says. Before Dianna can take another breath, black shadows zip through the air, and hollow thumps sound as they hit the backboard. Ten knives are lined in perfect precision within the white stripes on the board, and Zach looks as cheerful as ever. The troupe claps as Lea strolls over to pull them out, and then goes back to her mark, giving Zach a nod.  
  
“Give me a spin?” he says to Chris, who has moved from Dianna’s side and is standing close by, watching the proceedings with a frown. “You just have to take off that catch there at the side – right. Pretend I’m the Wheel of Fortune.” That provokes a laugh from the crowd, and Di can see but not hear Zach saying something to Chris. Her brother looks embarrassed but pleased, and he spins the backboard before stepping well back from the target area.  
  
“This is called the Wheel of Death,” Lea says confidently.  
  
Dianna feels dizzy watching Zach whizzing around and around on the wheel, but he’s calm enough. It’s almost peaceful, and then  _whack whack whack_  – within seconds, Lea has thrown ten knives into the wheel. As Chris steps up to stop it from spinning, Di sees that there are five knives on either side of Zach, faultlessly placed within the thick white lines. Everyone applauds, while Lea steps up to pull out her knives again.  
  
“My lovely assistant,” she says with a grand gesture towards Zach, who bows his head in acknowledgement. Lea pauses, her finger on her mouth as though struck with an idea. Dianna can recognize the exaggerated body language as classic performance style for the circus, to make sure the back seats can see and understand what’s going on. “Say, Zach, we’re doing so well, why don’t we try the Veil?’  
  
“Say, Lea, that sounds like a great idea. We’ve been working on a new trick,” Zach tells the company. “It’s called the Veil, because I’m hidden behind a sheet of paper.” Lea secures a large circle of butcher’s paper along the jutting edge of the wheel, clipping it down. The paper is held away far enough from Zach’s frame to cover him without touching.  
  
“We like this much better than blindfolded throwing,” Lea says to the crowd, walking back to her mark in the ground. “With blindfolds the audience always assumes that they’re see-through. Doing it this way, no-one can say it’s a trick.”  
  
“You’d better put the safety lock back on,” Zach’s disembodied voice says. “I mean you, Pine.” Chris jumps, but steps up to lock the wheel in place. “I don’t want to start moving while Lea’s chucking sharp objects at me. That’s a different trick entirely, and one I don’t plan on doing.”  
  
Lea frowns, and Dianna doesn’t think it’s part of the act – something about the crease in her brow is real. Chris has noticed it as well.  
  
“Is this  _safe_?” he demands. Dianna feels a prickle of irritation. The Veil is well enough known that Chris must have seen it before on YouTube at least, but by the way he’s glaring at Lea, Di can tell he doesn’t trust her.  
  
“As long as I hold still,” comes Zach’s reply.  
  
“You’d better get out of the way,” Lea tells Chris, and he steps backwards, still glowering at her.  
  
Ten blades hurtle through the air, pierce the paper, and thwack into the board. Zach gives a bloodcurdling scream as the last knife lands, and Dianna covers her mouth in horror, watches Chris stumble forward to rip down the paper.  
  
But Zach is grinning as he unbuckles the waist strap and steps down. “Sorry. We always do that for the Daisies.”  
  
Chris has gone pale, but Lea is giggling. Everyone else stands around, glancing at each other and waiting to see how Chris will react. Dianna wants to go to him, but something stops her. She relaxes her grip on the plastic arms of the folding chair and sits still, watching.  
  
“The…Daisies?” Chris asks, his throat hoarse.  
  
“Fresh as?” Zach supplies, raising an eyebrow. “That’s your slang, right?”  
  
Di sees the color flooding back into Chris’s cheeks, and he doubles over. Zach grabs him by the arm, concern twisting his mouth, but when Chris stands up again, he’s laughing.  
  
“You total  _assholes_ ,” he giggles. “That’s  _not funny_.” And after that, the rest of the company erupts, including Di. She makes her way over to Lea, who is pulling her blades out of the board and packing them away. Her eyes are twinkling and she smiles at Di, cheeks flushed and one nervous hand smoothing her hair under the linen bandanna. Dianna is struck by how  _pretty_  Lea is.  
  
“Can I help?” Dianna asks.  
  
“If you like. Yes. Sure.”  
  
So Di goes to the wheel and starts extracting the knives, placing them aside on a table. She gives the backboard an experimental shove and is surprised at how smoothly it runs. “You guys have only just started practicing the Veil?” she asks. “You’re very good.”  
  
“Of course not,” Lea scoffs. “We’ve been doing it for years, but it makes people more anxious when they think the trick is new. Like your brother.”  
  
Di ignores the small spurt of defensiveness she feels on Chris’s behalf. He hasn’t been all that nice to Lea so far, after all. She asks, “Can you only do your act with Zach? I mean, are you used to his height now?”  
  
Lea shakes her head. “I can do it with anyone. I’m used to Zach, but it’s really just the white lines I have to worry about. In fact–” She stops and looks around at the crowd. “I’ll tell you later,” she whispers.  
  
  
***

 

This night is cooler than last, so after dinner a large number of the troupe decide a drum circle and campfire will work once it gets dark. Karl in particular is delighted, and hurries off to fetch his fire staff.  
  
“Can we go for a walk?” Lea asks as the mess tent clears. They sat next to each other tonight to eat, although Lea was quiet. Di wouldn’t have picked her as shy, but with Zoë chattering and John joking and Anton boasting, perhaps she just didn’t feel she had much to add.  
  
“Sure. Not too far, though, okay? I’m getting tired. Maybe we can find somewhere to sit.”  
  
“Of course. Just say when, and we’ll stop and come back. But I’d like to talk to you about something.”  
  
The sun has not yet died, and there’s a path to the right behind the Big Top, leading into the trees. Lea links arms with her, but it’s not the usual patronizing gesture of ‘helping’, so Di allows it without trying to pull away. She moves Lea towards the forest. Greenwood’s sticks to travelling through smaller towns these days, because the price of hiring space in larger cities is not cost-effective. Except in Los Angeles. Los Angeles always loves them. Dianna, though, thinks that there’s a measure of compensation in their current route, travelling down past the verdant forest.  
  
The nearby town is like every other they’ve traveled through – friendly before dark, nothing open after 10pm except the bar on the outskirts, and you don’t have to be a local to know that place is bad news. The troupe members rarely venture out to consort with townies at night, unless it’s one of the bigger cities. Too many weird ideas about what it’s like living in a circus, and too many frustrated locals looking to take out their life grievances on someone they won’t have to look in the eye again.  
  
Dianna and Lea sit on a wooden bench they find a few minutes into the track. The full moon is already shiny and plump in the sky, ready to light their way home after sunset.  
  
Lea is full of compact energy, even though she sits still and with perfect posture. Dianna has the same quality herself, from years of experience. The ability to stop and be still and wait for the right moment to act.  
  
“Zach said he spoke to you about the trapeze issue.”  
  
“Which trapeze issue are we talking about, exactly?” Di would prefer to be certain before she puts her foot in anything.  
  
“The fact that I can’t do it,” Lea says, and sighs. It’s a small, genuine sound of unhappiness. “I’ve always admired you so much,” she continues. “I wanted to be like you ever since I first heard about you. You were so amazing up there – I’ve watched all the YouTube videos, and I’ve read every article about you. I even got to see you live once, when Greenwood’s used to come out east. I talked Zach into taking me to your New York show. I was only thirteen, but so were you. You were my inspiration for getting out, getting away.”  
  
Lea looks like she wants to say more, but stops. Dianna waits. Thirteen, she realizes. That must have been the year after Dad abandoned them, the last time they went out east for a tour.  
  
“The way you spun around and around in the middle of nothing, so unafraid,” Lea says. “Sometimes I thought you truly did have divine powers. You made me believe that sometimes people really can fly.”  
  
It’s times like these that Di is pleased that she hasn’t lost her stillness. She doesn’t want to give away her immediate emotional reaction, which is,  _And how do you think_ I _feel_?  
  
“Then why don’t you try it? Training with Chris?”  
  
“I wouldn’t trust him, for one thing.” Di feels her temper rising again at the slight to her brother, but Lea doesn’t seem to notice. “And even if I did, I’m…I’m not good with heights.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“You think I haven’t  _tried_  trapeze before? It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do, but I just can’t climb up that high, I can’t deal with it.” She sounds so defensive that Dianna lets it drop.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Di says. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”  
  
“I’m not upset,” Lea snaps, but then deflates, her shoulders rounding. “Maybe a little. But it’s not your fault. Something happened when I was younger, but I don’t like to talk about it.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“When I heard that Chris dropped you, I couldn’t believe it, that he could make such a terrible mistake. I would never have made a mistake like that.”  _Don’t push me, Daisy,_  Dianna thinks, clenching her fists. “I’d already vowed that I’d be the best in the world at something, and if it couldn’t be trapeze or aerials it would be something just as dangerous.” She looks up. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”  
  
“You can talk to me about it if you promise to stop saying horrible things about my brother.” Lea looks contrite. “You need to stop blaming him for what happened. It was an accident, bad timing and bad luck around a bunch of small things. You don’t want to talk about what happened to you, that’s fine. I don’t like talking about the day I fell. But if we’re going to be friends, you need to stop talking like that about Chris.”  
  
“Of  _course_  I want to be friends,” Lea says, grasping her hands. “I won’t say another word about him.”  
  
Dianna extracts her hands gently and wonders how long it will take until this Daisy learns that she’s just another person with faults and foibles, and not a flying goddess. Not long, she hopes. The worship in Lea’s eyes is starting to wear on her nerves.  
  
“I want to try a Veiled Wheel,” Lea continues. “The target is covered by paper on the backboard, like Zach was this morning – but he was stationary. For this new trick, the wheel spins.”  
  
“That sounds risky.”  
  
Lea nods. “Only four impalement artists have ever done it in public. All male.” She lists them, names and years, and Dianna has never heard of any of them, although—  
  
“The Great  _Throwdini_?”  
  
“What’s wrong with that?” Lea asks, confused, and Dianna has to swallow her laughter. Lea doesn’t find it funny. “Anyway – if I do a Veiled Wheel I’ll be the first female to do it.”  
  
“You’d be the best in the world.”  
  
“Right.” The word is filled with pride, determination and self-belief. “But…”  
  
“But?”  
  
“But Zach won’t do it. I don’t know why, he won’t tell me. It’s not that he doesn’t trust me, because I can see that he does, it’s something else. And I don’t have any more time to waste on trying to convince him. So I wanted to know whether  _you_  would do it. Be my target girl.”  
  
“Be your  _target girl?_ ”  
  
“I know it doesn’t seem like an important job—”  
  
“Are you  _kidding_  me?” Di snarls. Target girls are glorified eye-candy. Target girls are there to make the knife thrower look good. Target girls have no special talent of their own, not while they’re on the wheel anyway. Zach can get away with it because he’s a guy, but if Dianna got up there, let Lea throw knives at her? She could kiss away any respect left over from her past performances.  
  
“But you don’t understand—”  
  
“Oh, I understand. I can’t fly anymore, but at least I can get some use out of my pretty face, right?”  
  
“But Dianna, once you see our act, our  _real_  act…I don’t just want you as a target, I want you to be part of the show,” Lea says miserably.  
  
Lea has been pleasant to her, and she’s one of the few people right now treating Di like she wants to be treated. “I’m sorry,” she says, trying not to sound stilted. “I get it. You were just trying to include me in something.”  
  
“I don’t think I explained very well. Sometimes I’m not very good at that kind of thing. When you see the act, you’ll understand what I’m trying to say. Maybe you’ll reconsider.”  
  
“Lea, I appreciate the thought, but no thanks.”  
  
“I shouldn’t have kept you out so long,” Lea says, changing the subject. “Let’s head back before your brother sends out a search party. He’s very protective, I guess to make up for—” She pauses at the look on Dianna’s face. “Let’s head back.”  
  
  
***  
  
  
Dianna steers clear of everyone for the next few days. She goes out to meals and sits with the troupe, but for the first time she feels like she’s on the outside looking in. She’s always felt like she was part of one big –  _very_  big – family. But now she imagines the Daisies taking her place, pushing her out of the nest like cuckoos.  
  
Watching Zach, who is popular and an instant hit among the company, start to find his feet and fit in, she better understands Chris’s reluctance to teach him trapeze. It’s as if the Daisies are taking over where she and Chris left off. Lea is frequently exasperating, but no one can deny her talent, especially after she sang her heart out to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” for the Wednesday night drum circle. Di used to sing at the drum circle, but she was never _that_ good.  _Alright, point taken!_  she wanted to shout.  _I might as well be your target girl; I can’t do anything else._  
  
Now it’s opening night for the new town and the Daisies' first real show with Greenwood’s, and Dianna can’t hermit herself away anymore. She  _has_  to go to show her support.  
  
Chris sits next to her, so at least she feels like they’ve been benched together. They’re front row, best seats in the house, ahead and to the side of Bruce, who is primed to take notes on each act and judge crowd reactions. The Big Top fills up with people. The crowd is restless, and Dianna can feel excitement and expectation emanating out of the audience in waves. When she used to fly, she would imagine all those volatile emotions rising up like a tangible thing that made the air thicker, kept her buoyant so she could float in mid-air.  
  
“They’re hungry tonight,” she says, slipping back in to John’s terminology without thinking. It’s his way to describe a large and eager crowd. With this kind of audience it always felt like one massive organism, feeding on the performances and giving back energy at the same time, in a symbiotic relationship.  
  
The lights go down and the crowd hushes, and Chris shifts beside her. They both know what’s coming, but it never gets less scary or thrilling: Zoë, in a headdress as tall as she is, riding her enormous white stallion. She bursts into the ring with a fanfare and rides bareback around the circle in a spotlight until the sound of hooves are drowned out by the cheers of the crowd. Di can feel Chris tense as Zoë pulls her legs up, kneels on Ulysses’ broad back, and jumps up in one fluid move to stand with perfect balance, as though the headdress weighed no more than a fascinator. Chris has always worried about Zoë’s safety, and since the accident he’s been more afraid than ever.  
  
There’s no need to worry tonight, though, as Zoë performs a steady arabesque and then jumps down to sit astride Ulysses’ back again. Ulysses swerves, leaps over the ring boundary, and clatters up the front track as the crowd  _oohs_  and  _ahhs_.  
  
“You worry too much,” Di says to Chris, who is still clutching his hands together as though in earnest prayer.  
  
“One slip and one hoof,” he hisses back. “That’s all it takes.” She slides a hand over his and he gratefully intertwines their fingers.  
  
Zoë will be back later to show off her trick riding with Anton on saddled horses, but Di knows that the second act won’t see Chris any more relaxed. Right now, though, it’s time for the opening parade. The explosion of artists into the ring is filled with color and happiness, and as Dianna catches sight of each familiar face she feels her mood lift. She fills with pride, wants to turn around to the people behind her and say, “These are  _my_  folk. This is my family, aren’t they incredible?”  
  
Lea and Zach have learned the choreography well and are synchronized with the rest of the troupe. Bodies flip and cartwheel and jump, flashing by in a flurry of color and movement, and then a surge of performers disperse out of the ring, waving at the crowd.  
  
The clowns are left behind, looking exaggeratedly confused until John rounds them up and they start in on the first real act for the night. The ill-temper that has plagued Di over the last few days dissipates, her reluctant smiles turning into helpless laughter. Even Chris, whose rift with John after the accident left the whole company on edge, is chuckling at his antics. Maybe it’s a sign that the two of them can make up, although Di’s not even sure how the problem started. But the thought passes from her mind as Simon appears to whip up the crowd, and then the next act comes out – Karl, breathing flames and throwing his fire staff, ablaze at both ends, high above his head.  
  
Intermission lasts long enough for patrons to spend up big at the novelty stands and candy butcher, but Dianna stays in the Big Top, watching the crew resettle the sawdust. Soon enough the audience files back in for more clowning, a low-wire dance act by Jennifer and Rachel, and then Zoë and Anton swinging around on their thundering horses. Dianna hears Bruce growling something when Anton performs a Cossack drag, hanging upside down by one leg from the saddle. “Not approved?” she asks Chris, who shakes his head. Bruce has always been a stickler for safety, and clamped down even more after Di’s fall. Anton and Bruce have been going head-to-head about the Cossack drag trick since last season when Anton took a bad tumble in practice and ended up with concussion. Last Dianna heard, Bruce had still banned it for this season. Anton apparently doesn’t care.  
  
“Glad I’m not in Anton’s shoes,” Chris whispers. “But he shouldn’t be doing it without approval. It’s not called the death drag for nothing.”  
  
Dianna says nothing. Anton and Zoë are leaving, and it’s time for the main event – Lea and Zach.  
  
Lea comes out first, dressed in the stiff tutu and corsetry of a traditional target girl. Her hair is plaited across the top of her head and she wears overstated stage make-up that makes her look like a doll – enormous dark eyes and a tiny red rosebud mouth. As the scene starts, she bustles in with a feather duster, pretends to clean the backboard, and then drifts closer to the table with the knives. Di is surprised; she hadn’t realized there was a whole act around the knife-throwing.  
  
Just as Lea reaches out one tentative finger to touch a knife, Zach bursts into the ring and mimes out his anger. Lea stumbles and crouches under the table, clutching at its legs. Zach’s harem pants no longer look silly. He’s dressed in black satin from head to toe, his top a fitted waistcoat that leaves his pale, defined arms free. As he wags his finger and shakes his head, the story opens up for Dianna and she understands: Zach is a knife-thrower and Lea his target girl, but she’s always wanted to train in the art herself. Unbeknownst to Zach, she’s been practicing at night when he’s asleep, and she’s tired of being bullied and harassed.  
  
They manage to tell the entire back-story in under a minute through stylized gestures and expressions, and Dianna is astonished at their talent. So is Chris. He turns to look at her, raising his eyebrows.  
  
When she snaps under Zach’s treatment, Lea rips off her tutu to stand in shiny black leggings and her red corset. She begins to sway, more pronounced as the music lifts, and Zach begins to sway in time with her, copying her movements as though – “He’s mesmerized!” she whispers to Chris.  
  
Chris makes an incredulous noise. She smacks his thigh with the back of her fingers. “Play nice.”  
  
But the performance is drawing them both in, making them lean forward in their chairs. Lea mimes using the force of her will to push Zach back, back, back onto the throwing board, where he climbs up and then slumps forward as though in a hypnotic trance. Lea straps him at ankles, waist and wrists, and then stage-slaps him with an arcing backhand across the face. Zach jolts upright and, finding himself secured to the board, tries to pull free, wrenching against the restraints.  
  
Lea laughs and cartwheels back to the table of knives.  
  
“He’s good, too,” Di murmurs, watching Zach’s face contort with rage as he silently screams at Lea to let him go.  
  
“I don’t think he’s acting.”  
  
“ _Chris._ ”  
  
They watch as Lea holds up one of her black rose knives, pointing towards the center of the Big Top, and Dianna gives a wistful look up at the space –  _there, right there, I used to dance in thin air_  – before she’s caught up again in the drama. Zach’s struggles diminish as he acts out his realization of what Lea intends to do, until he’s still and straight-backed on the board. He hangs his head in defeat, looking so sorrowful that Di feels compassion and fear for him.  
  
She’s so caught up in it that she yelps along with the crowd as the first knife hits home, the solid thud of it rising above the music, and Zach jerks his head up, his eyes wide and terrified. Di slips her hand into Chris’s – she knows it’s all just a performance, but she didn’t expect it to be quite so  _scary_  – and feels relieved when Chris squeezes her fingers.  
  
With each knife thrown, Lea strikes a different stance, and the slow, purposeful movements seem familiar to Di in some way, like Tai Chi maybe. But there’s none of the peacefulness she feels when she watches a group progressing in that traditional routine. It’s much more sensual, like a slow-motion, solitary tango.  
  
Every knife lands with precision in the backboard, and Lea has closed half the distance between them now. Zach’s expression has changed from fearful to resolute, and Di finds herself imagining the rest of the story between them. Perhaps he loved her once, and she him.  
  
“You think he broke her heart?” she asks Chris, and he gives her a confused smile.  
  
“Pretty sure Zach’s gay, sweetie.”  
  
“I didn’t mean – oh, never mind.”  
  
Lea is pulling out the knives now and sliding each into a holster around her waist so that she ends up with a dangerous belt of blades. She keeps hold of the last one and, in one fluid motion, slices down the front of Zach’s waistcoat. The whole audience makes a noise as she pulls it off him, and Di knows it must be Velcroed to come off like that, but it’s still shocking. Lea reaches out a tender hand and slides it across Zach’s brow, down his cheek, neck, chest, stomach – Di feels Chris tensing beside her for a different reason this time.  
  
“Pretty sure Zach’s gay, sweetie,” she whispers. The sulky way Chris slumps in his seat with his arms crossed makes her smile.  
  
Lea’s hand has made its way back up Zach’s body, and she leans against the backboard, looking up into his face. Zach’s face is neutral, but the rigid muscles in every part of his body tell the story loud and clear: he’s not making any sudden movements.  
  
Then Lea moves, cobra-like, to spin the wheel.  
  
  
***  
  
  
“It was amazing,” Dianna tells Lea much later, when she’s in bed. Chris grumbled about it, but she insisted on seeing Lea before she slept, because Di owes her a huge apology. “I get it now, what you’re trying to do. Reverse the stereotypes, play with them…you were right, I understand now that I’ve seen the act and I’m sorry I brushed you off before.”  
  
The whole act was one of the most exciting things Dianna has ever seen – and she’s seen a lot of exciting things. Di understands now why Bruce contracted them to headline, even though they aren’t trapeze artists. The audience loved them both, and Lea seemed to feed off their energy, growing taller and more present with every moment she was in the ring.  
  
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Lea says. She’s feverish with achievement, thrilled at the crowd response even now, sitting on the corner of Di’s bed. She starts talking about ideas for an all-girl performance. “Zach’s had some  _amazing_  suggestions,” she says. His ideas, as Lea tells them, are smart and interesting and risky.  
  
Dianna  _misses_  risk. She sympathized with Anton after the show. He’s been banned from performing at all for two weeks.  
  
“I can’t believe you even  _want_  to do trapeze when you can do that,” Di says, once Lea falls quiet.  
  
Lea makes an impatient gesture. “Fly trap is the central show, and the best. People come to  _see_  the fliers, those daring young men on the flying trapeze. And women. Daring young women.  Greenwood's really does need...”  She stops talking.  
  
“Greenwood's needs something to pull the crowd," Di says.  "They’ll come to see you. Especially if you manage to pull off the Veiled Wheel.”  
  
“Mm.” Lea sounds unconvinced.  
  
Dianna says, “I guess we always want what we can’t have.”  
  
“I guess we do,” Lea replies, leaning in with a smile. She comes closer and closer until she kisses Di full on the mouth, her lips careful and soft.  
  
She pulls back and Dianna stares at her, speechless. “Oh, no,” Lea says. “I thought – I’m so sorry. I—”  
  
She crashes out the trailer door before Dianna can even catch her breath.


End file.
